Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles, is a 115-island country spanning an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar.
Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Agaléga and Réunion to the south, and Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest. Seychelles, with an estimated population of 86,525, has the smallest population of any African state. It has the highest Human Development Index in Africa and the highest income inequality in the world, as measured by the Gini index. Seychelles is a member of the African Union.
The climate is equable although quite humid, as the islands are small, classified by Köppen-Geiger system as tropical rain forest. The temperature varies little throughout the year. Temperatures on Mahé vary from 24 to 30 °C, and rainfall ranges from 2,900 mm annually at Victoria to 3,600 mm on the mountain slopes. Precipitation is somewhat less on the other islands. During the coolest months, July and August, the average low is about 24 °C. The southeast trade winds blow regularly from May to November, and this is the most pleasant time of the year. The hot months are from December to April, with higher humidity (80%). March and April are the hottest months, but the temperature seldom exceeds 31 °C. Most of the islands lie outside the cyclone belt, so high winds are rare.
In 1971, with the opening of Seychelles International Airport, tourism became a significant industry, essentially dividing the economy into plantations and tourism. The tourism sector paid better, and the plantation economy could only expand so far. The plantation sector of the economy declined in prominence, and tourism became the primary industry of Seychelles.
In recent years the government has encouraged foreign investment to upgrade hotels and other services. These incentives have given rise to an enormous amount of investment in real estate projects and new resort properties, such as project TIME, distributed by the World Bank, along with its predecessor project MAGIC. Despite its growth, the vulnerability of the tourist sector was illustrated by the sharp drop in 1991–1992 due largely to the Gulf War. Since then the government has moved to reduce the dependence on tourism by promoting the development of farming, fishing, small-scale manufacturing and most recently the offshore financial sector, through the establishment of the Seychelles International Business Authority and the enactment of several pieces of legislation.
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